I haven’t really kept up with Dynamite’s pulp heroes, dropping most of the titles after a couple of issues or so for varying reasons. However, once I learned Chris Roberson would be putting them all together in one big ol’ team-up book, well, I couldn’t resist. Here you’ve got Dynamite’s marquee properties – The Shadow, Green Hornet and Kato, Zorro, and the Spider – all lumped together for one story. While Masks #1 only hits the broad strokes of a presumably bigger tale, the interaction of characters and thematic intentions are enough to make this a worthwhile buy.

Roberson isn’t in a rush to bring all of the characters together, but still manages to get a lot of housekeeping done relatively early on. In the opening pages, two groups are brought together rather randomly, but Roberson manages to make it all fit logistically by the time the issue concludes. Masks #1 is essentially an exploration of law vs. justice, and why these heroes that operate outside of the law are the only ones that can truly achieve said justice. There’re some heavy ideas in here, but Roberson navigates it with ease by keeping the character interaction fun and the action constant.

Alex Ross returns to interiors for the first time in a while and delivers more of exactly what you’ve come to expect: a photorealistic homage to the golden age of comics a la Norman Rockwell. I’m an admirer of Ross’s obvious skill, but his interiors often suffer from a poisonous stillness that can bring the story to a screeching halt. Thankfully, that’s not quite an issue here, though there are numerous pages that are better panel-to-panel – as individual works – than they are as a page of storytelling. In addition, some of the action sequences featuring a slew of characters can grow to be a little muddy. Still, the level of detail is as remarkable as ever and there are some truly standout pages; the double-page newsreel-style spread is a particularly phenomenal achievement.